Kyra Staedmon
Kyra has fair skin and black hair, typically kept up in a bun. Her eyes are chestnut brown and she has the same sharp jawline as the rest of the Staedmon family. She is short, just barely over five feet tall, and has a lean and lithe build. Biography Kyra Staedmon was born a month sooner than anticipated to Lord Aurane Staedmon and Lady Eleanor. Maester Jasper was called in from Stonehelm to assist, for House Staedmon had no maester of its own, and even with the maester’s best efforts it was thought that the child’s chance of survival was no better than coin toss. But chance sided with House Staedmon and the child pulled through. Maester Jasper, now called to Stonehelm, advised Lord Aurane that the child might prove sickly and would require additional care. Lord Aurane wrote to the Citadel three moons after Kyra’s birth and requested a maester. House Staedmon was ill-suited to carry the expense, having lost so much land and wealth after backing Orys Baratheon, and so certain frivolities were cast aside to compensate. Lord Aurane discontinued his frequent hunting trips deep into the Rainwood, Lady Eleanor reduced her staff, and tolls were raised. Maester Alyn arrived four moons after Lord Aurane’s letter. As Kyra’s health improved, her parents breathed a sigh of relief. And as with so many other noble families, they decided to try again, so that they might have a son to inherit and a daughter to marry off. But things didn't go well for Lady Eleanor, who lost the child after several moons. Maester Alyn advised the couple to refrain from attempting to have another child in light of the increasing health risks. But Kyra was always a difficult child. First it was her health, then it was her general volatility. Lady Eleanor recruited a string of septas to assist, but each eventually washed their hands of the task. Until Septa Gwin. Septa Gwin, hailing from the frigid North, was a harsh taskmistress, preferring the cane to parables. She was undaunted by the difficulties posed by Kyra, claiming that precocious children like her were simple enough to manage once one learned their tricks, and she was well equipped to handle all manner of the child’s tantrums. And so Kyra, realizing that displacing this septa would require a great deal more work and planning, slowly devised an insidious plot. It would change several times over the following year, but the core idea always remained the same. And it was this scheme that would enable her to weather the septa’s condescension and abuse. In 282, an investigation conducted by her uncle Ser Karyl Staedmon revealed that two servants had been stealing from the keep. Lord Aurane had the two servants whipped and banished from his lands. And in this Kyra, whose governess went to great lengths to pontificate on the evils of theft, saw her next opportunity. She repurposed two items of some modest value that year and three the next. And at the beginning of 284, she took a silver earring engraved with the Staedmon sigil and left it near the Altar of the Mother in the sept. The following morning, when Lord Aurane came to pray for his wife’s health and the safe delivery of what he hoped would be his son, he saw the earring. His wife thanked him for finding it, presumably thinking she was herself at fault, but the Lord of Broad Arch was not convinced. He dug further and found two other pieces of jewelry, including a copper ring from the Cyprae Mines that his family had lost so long ago, simply missing. He was confounded, and said as much to Ser Karyl. Kyra overheard this remark and asked what color copper was. Ser Karyl produced an old coin, just starting to turn green. Kyra mentioned that she remembered seeing Septa Gwin with a green ring. The two adults played it off, but Ser Karyl ransacked the septa’s room while she was at the sept that night, finding three of the four items Kyra had planted. The septa was not beaten, though Ser Karyl asked permission three times; instead she was thrown out and a letter of protest sent to the High Septon. In 284, despite the very best espers of Maester Alyn and the assistance of Maester Jasper from Stonehelm, Lady Eleanor dies of complications arising from her third pregnancy. The child, a male, was stillborn. Lord Aurane fell to pieces, spending most of his days drinking in his solar and leaving the governance of Broad Arch to his brother. Three moons later, a letter arrived from King Harmon IV, who invited Lord Aurane to serve as his spymaster. The king had heard of Lord Aurane’s network of confidants and informants through the Lord of Stonehelm, who periodically benefited from his subject’s efforts. Lord Aurane accepted the offer, seeking any excuse at all to be away from the place his wife and son died. Lord Aurane was preparing to leave the following morning when he found his daughter already awake and in riding leathers. He laughed, then ordered her to “go play” with Ser Karyl’s daughter. This earned him a scowl and crossed arms, followed by a bold declaration that she “would accompany her lord father to Storm’s End.” The knights selected to escort their lord tried to maintain their composure, but when Ser Ronald broke down and laughed, the rest of them joined in. Reflecting for a moment on how long it had been since he heard joyful laughter, Lord Aurane relented and permitted his troublesome daughter to accompany him to Storm’s End. They arrived several days later only to find that no one had remembered to fetch court attire, and so Kyra Staedmon’s first appearance in the court of King Harmon IV was in the only dress Lord Aurane could acquire on such short notice – a no-frills black and red dress, better suited to a merchant’s dinner party than a king’s court. Throughout Kyra’s stay in Storm’s End, her father attempted again and again to drill the protocols of statecraft into her head. He found, as so many septas had before him, that she a stubborn streak as wide as the Blackwater and twice as deep. Still, she was a child and a bit of rebellion could be forgiven. Lord Aurane concluded negotiations with his old hunting partner, Lord Whitehead, that would see Kyra betrothed to Ronnel Whitehead, third son of the lord, with the children belonging to House Staedmon. The boy is brought to Storm’s End, where he and Kyra meet. She immediately takes a disliking to him. Lord Whitehead saw this and proposed a hunting trip. The two lords and the two betrothed went hunting three days later. Lord Whitehead brought down three birds on the wing with his bow and Lord Aurane bagged two red tailed deer, the second of which had badly damaged antlers. They inspected them, finding scars and scrapes, and deduced that something dangerous had attacked it. But bored by the investigation, Kyra and Ronnel wandered off. Ronnel spoke of how he’d be a True Knight someday, how he’d win a tourney and name Kyra the Queen of Love and Beauty. Kyra laughed at that, but her rejoinder was cut off by the appearance of a wild boar ahead of the pair. It was missing an eye, the broken tip of a spear jutting from just behind its left shoulder, and it looked angry. As sheltered as they might have been with their noble upbringing, both knew the dangers posed by boars to fully grown men with hunting spears. They knew that the board was dangerous. And so they ran, screaming and arms flailing, hoping their fathers would rescue them. But in their idleness they had wandered far. The lords heard the cries and immediately mounted their steeds, but tracking the two children through the forest and then stopping the boar would take some work. Running pell-mell through the trees, however, did not help the children. Wild boar run fast, even with a spearhead embedded in their abdomen. Kyra was slightly slower than Ronnel, who had a year on her and longer legs, and she knew that meant the boar would run her down. Ronnel didn’t need to be the fastest – he just had to not be the slowest. So as they rounded a hairpin turn in the trail, the boar grunting along behind them, she realized what she had to do. She tripped him. It was a snap decision, but it was a ruthless one. Young Ronnel fell face-first and then Kyra was running away again. The lords found her a few minutes later, inquired after Ronnel, and then rode down the trail. Lord Aurane buried his spear in the boar’s neck; it sprinted away, crashing through the underbrush, and bled to death two minutes later. Lord Whitehead took Ronnel and rode his horse to death rushing back to Haystack Hall, but he was unable to get there in time. Ronnel died somewhere between the Wendwater and the talented hands of House Errol’s maester. The records would show that Ronnel Whitehead died in a tragic hunting accident. Lord Whitehead never suspected Kyra of foul play, for what man could truly ascribe to a ten year old child such a thing? Lord Aurane and Kyra attended the boy’s funeral in Mistwood Town, both in all black. After the funeral, Lord Aurane and Kyra returned to Broad Arch. Ser Karyl had managed the holding well in his brother’s absence, but a number of matters still required the attention of the lord. A handful of criminals had to be sentenced, for Ser Karyl did not have the power of pit and gallows, and a few letters for the lord required replies. While they were gone, Ser Karyl had formally recognized his baseborn daughter. It was not long after the return that Kyra attended the first sermon of Septon Jothos, who had arrived a week prior to replace the ailing Septon Manfred. Septon Jothos was something of a firebrand, but his particular brand of theology advocated the decentralization of the Faith. He hailed from the Claw and resented the disproportionate influence of Reachmen in the Faith, which he seemed to think might only be righted by empowering kings in lieu of High Septons. But life in Broad Arch still entailed many painful memories. And so when King Harmon IV died and left the sixteen year old King Durran XXX in his place, Lord Aurane and Kyra returned to Storm’s End. Lord Aurane swore the oath of fealty, just as he had to Lord Harmon IV so many years ago, and offered to continue his services as Royal Spymaster. His offer was accepted. Kyra, who had never quite known what her father did in Broad Arch, escaped the clutches of her septas on multiple occasions, sneaking into her father’s study to read the letters sent to him. They were coded and she found the puzzle of this fascinating. The first time she was caught, her father sent her to bed without supper. The second time he fired and replaced the governess. The third time he sighed and decided he might as well teach her some things. He gave her a coded letter and told her decipher it. He offered no key and she didn’t know to ask for one. It took her six days to realize that the symbols correspond to letters, four days to realize that she had spelled two words wrong and thus completely skewed the results, and a further three days to provide the solution: “Tensions rise in Oldtown as another septon is defrocked, chastised, and cast out from the Faith. The new High Septon is a different beast from his predecessors.” She also had to ask a maester what ‘defrocked’ meant. When she returned to her father with the solution, he was impressed. The two spent much of the night discussing the meaning of the letter and its implications. Lord Aurane had seen disputes among the Faithful and expected this disturbance to be water under the bridge in a decade; Kyra, who had a child’s perspective on life where all things were changeable and all the certainty of a girl of two and ten, claimed the High Septon would fall. Lord Aurane sent her to bed late that night and spent the next several hours contemplating the conversation. Somewhere along the way, some time between the death of his wife and that night, Kyra Staedmon stopped being a child that knew nothing and started being a (tiny) person that could reason things out, solve complicated puzzles, and hold meaningful conversations. And he had no idea when it had happened. Two moons later, Lord Aurane decided to take over his daughter’s education himself. He approached it with all the certainty of a lord of an ancient house… and promptly found himself inadequate. But he threw himself into it, suffering through hours of painful mistakes as he tried to teach his daughter how to sow when he himself knew nothing about it. It was a dismal failure, and the shirt he tried to sew wound up with two sleeves of varying length and a collar that was off-center, but he enjoyed it nonetheless. Ser Karyl later remarked that he hadn’t seen his brother that happy since before Lady Eleanor’s death. Lord Aurane’s plan to educate his daughter himself is promptly thrown out the window when news reaches Storm’s End that both of Tristifer Fletcher’s sons were killed by Ironborn reavers. Lord Aurane delegates the responsibility of his daughter’s education to Septa Falena and begins utilizing his spy networks in the lands on the border of the Stormlands. He continues to tutor her in matters of spycraft when the opportunity permits. As the war progresses, the Stormlander forces eventually deploy along the Blackwater, Lord Aurane went with the army and sent Kyra home to the care of her uncle. Kyra didn’t take kindly to being relegated to the sidelines, but her father left her no opportunity to change things. She returned to Broad Arch where she met Alyx Storm, her uncle’s baseborn daughter. Alyx had been recognized two years prior, but her status had kept them apart until now. Ser Karyl had made her his assistant and she had taken to an education at court much better than Kyra had. They were opposites in many respects. Kyra was tomboyish where Alyx had a classical Stormlander beauty to her; Kyra was temperamental and fiesty where Alyx was more subdued and in control of herself; Kyra yearned for something new while Alyx was perfectly content. Ser Karyl had attempted to keep the two from doing anything other than meeting in passing because he feared what such a clash might yield… but he didn’t expect them to become fast friends, each tempering and influencing the other in some small ways. When her father returned home in 292, Kyra had no idea what part he had played in the war. His runners brought news of Bitterbridge before the messengers and his agents fed information about the disposition of Celtigar and Darklyn forces, reducing King Durran’s losses as he rolled over the Dusklands and Claw. Later, his agents provided detailed maps of the area that would, together with the information provided by the army’s scouts, help lead the Reach army into a rather lopsided defeated. But Lord Aurane was not a boastful man and so he made no efforts to inform his family of what he had done. Which made it all the stranger when the king took a direct hand in ending the Staedmon-Grandison feud by orchestrating a betrothal between Kyra and Yohn Grandison, heir to Grandview. The king pitched the betrothal as uniting the two Houses by blood, making all other disagreements seem petty beside that. Kyra is initially outraged by this, shouting at her father that she will not be relegated to being a brood mare. Her father, who was on the verge of calling off the betrothal after her reaction, was spared by the timeline intercession of Alyx. Alyx pointed out that the king had forced neither House into this, giving them both an opportunity to back out, but it would be an insult to him to do so without at least meeting Yohn Grandison. Kyra relented. The betrothed met the following year. The lad, not yet a knight, showed proficiency in the skills of war and conducted himself in such a way that Lord Aurane had no objections. Kyra took longer to win over, but eventually agreed that Yohn Grandison was a perfectly fine suitor. Lord Aurane resumed Kyra’s training in matters of spycraft. She proved adept at it, as she always had, and he found she was ready for additional responsibility. She first became a sounding board for ideas and later a fellow architect in both espionage and counter-espionage. She assumed responsibility for managing his spy networks in the subject kingdoms while he turned his attention elsewhere. In 295, Kyra Staedmon and Ser Yohn Grandison were wed. It was a small affair, with the two families clearly separated in their seating arrangements, but it was attended by King Durran himself. Kyra had seen him before, of course, but this was the first time they had spoken. For a moment she resented Ser Yohn, thinking that she should marry the king, and then immediately blushed and felt like a fool. She later told Alyx about this and said she wished the Stranger would have taken her then and there to spare the guests from what she suspected was her sheer, unbridled awkwardness. The Storm War erupted the following year and her father did not march with the army. Instead, he managed the kingdom’s assets in the Greenbelt and the Marches from Broad Arch. He tried again and again to break the stalemate, but again and again he failed. He devised a ploy to sabotage House Wyl’s defenses. When Kyra counseled him against it, he disregarded her advice and proceeded with his plan. By the end of it, three hundred heavy infantry were dead and the objective had not been achieved. Following this, he announced that Kyra now knew more about espionage and spycraft than he did. Shortly after, Kyra, then two months pregnant, miscarried and lost the child. Several moons later, an agent named Theodan defected to the Greenbelt, further compromising his ability to manage the kingdom’s spy networks. It should never have happened, but Theodan had been able to earn Lord Aurane’s trust and serve as a handler for three other spy networks in the Greenbelt. His betrayal left the Stormlands all but blind. Lord Aurane sent the king his letter of resignation, which was disregarded. Lord Aurane and Kyra turned their efforts towards this “Brotherhood Without Banners.” They were inflicting disproportionate damage to the Stormlander war effort and needed to be removed. They failed. When King Durran marched home, Lord Aurane again attempted to resign. This time the king accepted. Following her second miscarriage a few moons later, Ser Yohn grew increasingly short with his wife. Kyra, never one to bite her tongue, reciprocated. Their marriage turned frosty and the two began to avoid one another at meals and gatherings. At some point duty (and a great deal of wine) drove them to make another attempt, after which Kyra was again with child. In the third moon of 298, however, she lost this one as well. The strain and stress left her bedridden. Maester Janos instructed her to refrain from “any future attempts at procreation,” for he believed a fourth attempt might kill her. Maester Janos gives the same speech to Ser Yohn, who storms out and returns to Grandview. After two moons of bed rest, Kyra gradually begins to return to her work managing the Staedmon family’s spy networks, but her recovery and return to normality is slower than expected. Ser Yohn returns to Broad Arch in the seventh moon, whereupon he expects his wife to share his bed. She refuses, citing the maester’s instructions. Ser Yohn broods over this and sends a rider to Grandview to enact a plan he’d devised over the preceding moons. His maester arrives the following moon. Spurred on by wine and the presence of his maester, Ser Yohn loudly complains that his wife refuses to fulfill her wifely duties and that he means to have his maester “inspect” her and verify the medical opinion provided by Maester Janos. Unamused, Lord Aurane informs Ser Yohn that they can discuss the matter privately after dinner. Despite the warning given, Ser Yohn persists. The situation spirals and both maesters attempt to intervene, urging that cooler heads prevail, but neither man will move. Lord Aurane had heard Ser Yohn’s whispers about his daughter, his only child, for far too long to suffer them spoken so boldly in his presence. Ser Yohn, meanwhile, claimed he’d been sold a “bill of goods” and now was unable to continue his line. As the shouting match rose in volume, more people got involved. Ser Ronald of the Rainwood, a longtime companion of Ser Yohn, raised his voice in protest of “the sham marriage” as well. This prompted Ser Karyl to join his brother in shouting at the younger knights, claiming they lacked honor and restraint. Soon Kyra’s own voice was raised. When Ser Yohn turned on her and began shouting at her directly, rather than through her father as the proxy, she lashed out in turn, saying she wanted nothing more to do with the “three inch fool.” Ser Yohn responded by punching his wife in the face. Kyra’s cheekbone broke in two places and she dropped like a stone. The room fell silent for a moment, then the guards rushed in. By the time they reached the table, Ser Karyl had laid Ser Ronald out and Lord Aurane and Ser Yohn were rolling on the ground. The guards pulled Ser Yohn off their lord and dragged both Grandview men into the dungeons. If Lord Aurane had been angry when Ser Yohn struck his daughter, he was irate when he heard the man had broken bones. Maester Janos predicted a full recovery, saying that bones so broken typically healed together without any great difficulty, but cautioned that it would be extremely painful to eat or drink for the next three months. Lord Aurane did not send a letter to Grandview or Stonehelm about this. There was no carefully-considered course of action. He simply went down into the dungeon and cut the sword hand off of the man who assaulted his daughter. He sent the Maester of Grandview down after he left. Unsurprisingly, Lord Regent Cedric Swann did not respond to this news well, sending a detachment of Swann knights to Broad Arch to discourage further violence. Privately, Lord Aurane ordered his own Maester Janos to determine the cause of his daughter’s miscarriages. Two weeks later, Ser Yohn’s fever broke and he was escorted to Grandview by knights of House Swann and the Maester of Grandview. Three further weeks later, Maester Janos privately reported that Kyra would not be able to conceive. He stated that the symptoms were consistent with long-term, low-dosage consumption of moon tea, which he solemnly swore that he had not provided to Kyra, nor had he been asked to do so, but the ingredients had gone missing from his stock. In the tenth moon, Kyra had recovered sufficiently to participate in the investigation. Unfortunately for her, the symptoms corresponded to her time spent in Broad Arch alone, not those moons spent in Storm’s End, and so nearly anyone in Broad Arch could have been responsible. She wrote down the name of every person who had routine access to the keep, including her kin, and began to reason her way through the list. She was able to eliminate a dozen names by determining that they were not present when some of the symptoms manifested, but that still left nearly four hundred. She resolved to use her father’s upcoming fiftieth nameday celebration to strike more names off of her list. Timeline 276: Kyra is born prematurely. She is a small child and Maester Jasper from Stonehelm is called in to assist. His work succeeds in saving the child, after which Lord Aurane determines to bear the burden of paying for his own maester. Kyra is named in honor of Lord Aurane’s tutor, Kyra Storm (d. 272). 278: Lady Eleanor miscarries. Maester Alyn recommends against future attempts at having a second child. 284: Lady Eleanor dies from complications arising from her third pregnancy. Later that year, Lord Aurane is offered the position of Royal Spymaster; he accepts and takes Kyra with him to Storm’s End. Her education in statecraft begins, yielding somewhat mixed results. 286: Lord Aurane negotiates a betrothal between Kyra and a son of one of the Lords of the Rainwood, but the betrothal falls apart when the boy is slain in a hunting accident. 289: Lord Aurane, tired of having to find new septas to educate his daughter, assumes the responsibility himself. He promptly finds himself overwhelmed. 290: The War of the Trident begins. Lord Aurane begins to school Kyra in matters of espionage and spycraft, but he cuts the effort short when he deploys with the army later that year. He sends Kyra back to Broad Arch. 292: Following Lord Aurane’s assistance in the War of the Trident, Durran XXX takes a direct hand in resolving the ancient disputes with House Grandison. Kyra is betrothed to Yohn Grandison, heir to Grandview. 295: Kyra and Ser Yohn Grandison marry at the end of the first moon in Broad Arch. King Durran XXX is in attendance at an otherwise small wedding. 296: Following a string of blunders and failures in the war with the Greenbelt, Lord Aurane resigns as Royal Spymaster. 298: Kyra miscarries for the third time early in the year, the strain of which nearly kills her. Later in the year, her husband accosts her in the great hall of Broad Arch. Accusations, rebuttals, and reciprocal accusations are let loose. The situation deteriorates and Ser Yohn strikes Kyra, is subdued by the guardsmen, and Lord Aurane cuts his hand off as punishment. Maester Janos is called upon to determine the cause of Kyra’s infertility, at which point he indicates poison. Kyra embarks upon a quest to determine who had means and motive. –- Family Family Echo Michael Staedmon (229-270) m. Margaery Hasty (227-272) * Aurane Staedmon (b. 249) m. Eleanor Swann (250-284) ** Kyra Staedmon (b. 276) m. Yohn Grandison (b. 275) * Karyl Staedmon (b. 253) m. Genna Bolling (250-271) ** Karyl Staedmon (271-271) *** Alyx Storm (b. 272) * William Staedmon (b. 260) m. Alys Cafferen (b. 258) ** Rickard Staedmon (b. 278) *** Elaena Staedmon (b. 280) **** Addam Staedmon (b. 284) ***** Jaime Staedmon (b. 284) Supporting Characters Lord Aurane Staedmon (b. 249), Lord of Broad Arch and former Royal Spymaster, Archetype: Bastion Maester Janos (b. 241), Maester of Broad Arch, Archetype: Maester Ser William Staedmon (b. 260), Household Knight, Archetype: Scout Alyx Storm (b. 272), Stewardess of Broad Arch, Archetype: Negotiator Ser Karyl Staedmon (b. 253), Castellan of Broad Arch Septon Jothos (b. 260), Septon of Broad Arch Category:Stormlander Category:Westerosi Category:House Staedmon